These seasons in which we feel God is silent can be moments filled with our biggest regrets, or our biggest displays of faith.

Sunday at my church, Christ Central Alachua, we watched a video sermon by Jeff Henderson from North Point Ministries called Silent Nights. (You can watch the full message here.)

He addressed what God is doing in the silence and what we should do by discussing God’s silence in the 400 years between Malachi & Matthew.

There is nothing between the last page of Malachi and the first verse in Matthew but 400 years passed. To understand this further, Jeff laid out a few verses for us...

In Malachi 1:2 we see the theme of Malachi… “I have always loved you,” says the Lord.

Jeff explained this phrase is neither past tense, present tense, or future tense... it is all of the above. God is saying.

I have loved you. I love you. I will love you.

And then the curtain closes and God is silent for 400 years.

Matthew 1:23 breaks this silence… “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel,which means ‘God is with us.’”

So what was God doing for 400 years? Was He fed up with our depraved humanity and it took that long to come back around for us? Was He just getting His strength up? Of course not!

Jeff shared 3 major historical events, which proved that God was at work behind the scenes setting the stage for what was to come. Through Alexander the Great one unified language became the standard, it became safe to travel thanks to the Roman peace, and they also put into place improved transportation systems.

Just like a play, the curtain closed, and God began re-arranging the world’s stage to prepare for act 2. If Jesus had come immediately after the Old Testament, spreading the Gospel as the disciples did, would not have been logistically possible.

Check out how Paul confirmed this in Galatians 4:4-5, "But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children."

Today, know this... if you are in a season of silent nights, God is working behind the curtain of your life and at the right time, the curtain will rise and you will be perfectly positioned to experience the will of God for your life.

When you hear God’s silence, and feel His absence, trust His presence.